[June 30, 1999] "XML vs. SGML: A Cautionary Tale." By Mike Maziarka [with Frank Gilbane, editorial overview]. In The Gilbane Report on Open Information & Document Systems Volume 7, Number 5 (May 1999), pages 1-7. [Overview] "We have remarked before that all the attention XML is receiving from the press has the disadvantage of creating unrealistic expectations about what you can do with XML. Even more dangerous is the potential for many IT managers to conclude that building XML applications is easy since everyone seems to be doing it and all products seems to support it. Because XML is so important, even industry insiders familiar with the complexities of managing unstructured data and working with markup languages often fall prey to the hungry evangelism. This month we hear from Mike Maziarka, an SGML veteran who knows from experience why SGML was difficult, and who has an aversion to hype. Mike explains why XML should not be considered all that much easier to implement." Maz writes: "Marketing muscle can make or break a product -- or a standard, in this case. As a result of Microsoft's marketing efforts, vendors -- especially those outside the traditional 'document' market -- have jumped on the bandwagon, announcing their XML support or planned support. But the promise of XML -- as compared to SGML -- was supposed to encompass more than widespread vendor support. XML is supposed to be less complicated, and as a result, easier to implement than SGML. Is this really turning out to be the case? To date, this could easily be debated. To answer this question, I think we need to look at several pieces of the puzzle: (1) the standards themselves, (2) software products that support the standards, and (3) the service component necessary to implement a system using the standards. . ."

[June 30, 1999] "Oracle and XML: Direct Connect." In The Yankee Group Research Notes Covering the week of June 29, 1999, [Item #13] "Oracle's primary strategy has been to forge direct connections from its 8i database to various types of content and data -- Web content in general and now XML specifically. This is in direct contrast to the common industry practice of using Web application servers and more specialized XML data servers for XML handling and transformation, as is the case with Bluestone's XML-Server and ODI's eXcelon Server. . . The Yankee Group believes that Oracle's broad support of XML will push the standard forward and increase its acceptance within the enterprise. At the same time, organizations will need to determine if they want their middle tier applications and data servers to handle XML transformation (as is the case with Bluestone's XML-Server and ODI's eXcelon Server), or if that is better handled closer to or within the actual database. . ."

[June 30, 1999] "XXX Notation Processors: Xperimental Xml leXer." By Rick Jelliffe. From Academia Sinica Computing Centre, Taipei, Taiwan. May 31, 1999. "This paper explains the architecture behind 'XXX: the eXperimental XML leXer'. The basic idea of XXX is that XML can be parsed using a recursive descent parser made from a highly parameterized general-purpose lexical analyser. The lexical analyser corresponds to a state in a state machine; the parameters correspond to transitions between states. Thus it is possible to go from a state-machine analysis of XML to the implementation of a lexer. Because the tokenizer is coupled to entities and not to the parser, we can use the same general-purpose tokenizer (with different parameters) to also generate a node-list tree from data in element content and in attributes. And we can use the same general-purpose parser (with different parameters) to parse the node-list of the embedded data. This could give a worthwhile decrease in code size for an XML application. . . In XML, the element tree, the entity tree, and the notation tree are all synchronous. Indeed, for simple documents with no DTD, one entity, and no embedded notations, there is no difference. Class-based XML implementations are often keyed off the element tree; it would be possible also to key a class-based implementation off the entity tree, especially for SGML which has a richer selection of notations available for entities. In this paper, I suggest that the notation tree may be the most suitable structure for tokenizer objects to follow."

[June 30, 1999] "Bow Street Offers A Custom Data Fit." By Cynthia Morgan. In Computerworld (June 28, 1999), page 72. "How do you convince 2,000 customers and suppliers that they're each getting special treatment? Web personalization, of course. Trouble is, each customer may require a slightly different data grouping or need different data formats at different times of the month. No matter how you slice the data, it's a lot of custom Web-page building. Relationship management tools target that problem by automating data-gathering and dynamic Web-page creation. In the past year, most vendors of relationship management tools have either switched to Extensible Markup Language (XML) or added XML support to their tools. Start-up Bow Street Software Inc. in Portsmouth, N.H., takes that a step further by combining XML tagging with network directory authentication. Bow Street's Web Services Architecture (WSA), now in beta testing, adds what may be the smartest step of all: Instead of requiring information technology managers to spend hours building and maintaining a separate database of clients and authorizations, WSA relies on the network's own directory services to provide information needed to authenticate users and track which data they may view." See also Bow Street Software.

[June 30, 1999] "IBM, Rational Work on Development Tools." By David Orenstein. In Computerworld (June 29, 1999). "IBM and Rational Software Corp. in Cupertino, Calif., yesterday announced a partnership under which Rational's application development management tools will be integrated with IBM's development framework for Java and Extensible Markup Language (XML) e-business applications. Rational makes tools for designing and testing applications and managing their development. The add-in can be downloaded as of tomorrow from www.software.ibm.com/vadd." See the announcement and XMI toolkit: bridge to Rational Rose.

[June 29, 1999] "XML Forms Architecture Sparks Standards Fight." By Jeff Walsh. In InfoWorld (June 26, 1999). "Jetform this week is announcing a new forms architecture based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML), with the goal of automating business processes. The XML Forms Architecture (XFA) is touted on the company's Web site as being the "first open standards-based forms architecture," a statement which raised eyebrows in the XML community, because Uwi.com introduced a similar architecture, the Extensible Forms Description Language (XFDL), in August 1998. Both companies are working with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to inform working groups of their requirements, rather than pitching their languages as stand-alone standards. Both say they do not foresee controlling a proprietary schema as a business model." See "XML Forms Architecture (XFA)" and the press release.

[June 30, 1999] "App Development Eased with XML." By Mark Hammond. In PC Week [Online] (June 28, 1999). "Oracle Corp. unveiled last week a new set of XML components that it says will ease access to and use of legacy data. The database giant announced at its iDevelop conference in Boston a pair of Extensible Markup Language parsers for C and C++. The parsers, which run on an application server, enable developers to access legacy information and transport it between applications using XML, Oracle officials said. They complement existing parsers for Java and Oracle's PL/SQL language."

[June 29, 1999] "IBM and Rational Sign Java, XML Agreement." By Ed Scannell and Dana Gardner. In InfoWorld (June 28, 1999). "In a move to bolster their ability to create and speed to market enterprise-scale electronic-business applications, IBM today will announce a marketing and development alliance with Rational Systems that heavily promotes Java and Extensible Markup Language (XML) as well as the fledgling Unified Modeling Language (UML) and XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) programming standards." See the press release.

[June 29, 1999] "Nancy Lee -- Sun's XML Product Manager Sees Synergy Between Java and XML ." By Jeff Walsh. In InfoWorld (June 26, 1999). [Interview with Nancy Lee, Sun's product manager for XML, discussing the relation between XML and Java.] "Java and Extensible Markup Language (XML) have long been touted as technologies that complement one another. The marriage of a cross-platform programming language with a cross-platform rich data format made sense to XML co-author Jon Bosak, who is also a Sun employee. 'XML gives Java something to do,' was Bosak's oft-quoted remark. In a similar fashion, Bosak's latest quote about the technologies is: 'XML and Java are the yin and yang of vendor-neutral computing.' While critics sometimes scoff at Sun's vendor neutrality claims surrounding Java, there is a lot of work being done by Sun and other vendors that brings the two technologies together. IBM has posted several XML and Java tools on its alphaworks site, and Bluestone Software has a markup language that enables an XML document to be converted to a Swing-based Java application. . . The message is that XML is everywhere in the Java platform and we're providing first-class XML support. [Sun's] goal is to make it easy for developers to use XML. For example, in Java2 Enterprise Edition [J2EE], XML is going to be supported throughout J2EE for enabling business-to-business data interchange. Currently, Java Server Pages support generating and consuming XML, and you can also use Java Messaging Services and EJB to create business logic associated with XML. That's the support within the J2EE platform. . ."

[June 29, 1999] "XML Makes Object Models More Useful. Extensible Markup Language can be used for many aspects of a system's architecture, from the early stages of modeling through development." By Bruce Klein. In Information Week (June 28, 1999). "One reason for all the hype surrounding the Extensible Markup Language is the extensibility factor, which lets people come up with new and creative uses for XML almost daily. Be it document indexing or data standards, XML is relevant to the discussion. KPMG's consulting arm has found that XML can be applied to multiple aspects of a system's architecture as well, beginning at the earliest stages of business and object modeling and continuing through the various stages of development. A business domain can actually be represented in XML, and that representation can drive key components of a system's architecture, from defining messages being passed between system components to actually generating large portions of the code at each layer of the classic three-tiered architecture. From a business standpoint, an application architecture that incorporates XML is better positioned to support that same application quickly via an additional delivery channel. For example, an application that's available to users via the Web and a call center can be extended to a kiosk environment without writing an entirely new user interface from scratch. . ."

[June 29, 1999] "IBM, Rational Announce Alliance." By George DiGiacomo. In InternetNews.com (June 28, 1999). "IBM Corp. and Rational Software Corp. Monday announced a strategic alliance to jointly develop and market software to help customers accelerate the development and deployment of e-business applications. The alliance provides new integration between e-business software that is based on open industry standards such as XML and Java. IBM and Rational hope to provide support for the application development process to provide business process modeling, business requirements definition, visual modeling, code generation, configuration management, defect tracking, testing, deployment and systems management. IBM and Rational are attempting to more closely integrate Rational Suite with software from the IBM Application Framework for e-business. One new integration is a standards-based XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) bridge between IBM's VisualAge* for Java and Rational Rose, a product in Rational Suite. This enables round-trip engineering between VisualAge for Java and Rational Rose, providing generation of Java code from models and models from Java." See the press release.

[June 29, 1999] "Microsoft Won't Kill XML." By Brian Walsh. In TechWeb Network Computing (June 28, 1999). "Microsoft's use of XML benefits users, who will survive upgrades without losing the ability to process documents. It benefits developers, who will be able to leverage those document types in more situations. And it benefits Microsoft, which can focus on adding features and fixing problems other than document conversions. The XML community is widespread and deep enough to vigilantly point out departures. Now, if you harbor ideas about a new XML schema for word-processing documents or slide presentations, you might have a problem. Microsoft's overwhelming market share in productivity applications means it has a lot of weight when it comes to using XML to represent those types of documents. Note that I said using the standard, not creating a standard. It is also reasonable to assume that Boeing will have a lot to say when defining how XML can be used to describe airplane parts, or Amazon.com will have a strong idea of how it would like to see books represented." [Article also at: TechWeb.]

[June 29, 1999] "Allaire Kicks Up E-Comm Tempest." By Richard Karpinski. In InternetWeek Issue 771 (June 28, 1999). [Section: News & Analysis] "The company that brought site builders ColdFusion is extending the popular Web development package to handle the higher-end requirements of e-business. Allaire Corp. is putting the finishing touches on an e-commerce development platform, code-named Tempest, that's built on top of the core ColdFusion application server used by hundreds of thousands of Web developers. Tempest adds capabilities such as content management and syndication, rules-based security, improved application workflow and personalization. . . n addition, Tempest leverages existing Allaire technologies such as Web Distributed Data Exchange (WDDX), its XML-based data exchange format. Further out, Tempest will inherit Java technology from Live Software Inc., a company Allaire recently acquired. Roundpeg's Fisher also gave high marks to Tempest's XML-based content syndication capabilities. "It's one of the first great uses of XML," he said. For instance, a site could easily make its content available to third parties or pull in outside content using simple XML meta tags."

[June 29, 1999] "Maxor Finds Rx With Reporting Tool From Actuate." By Ellis Booker. In InternetWeek Issue 771 (June 28, 1999). "Maxor National Pharmacy Services Corp. is about to put into production a Web front end to its data warehouse that will give customers access to detailed, personalized pharmaceutical reports. new in Actuate's e.Reporting Suite 4 are support for Dynamic HTML, as well as a template-driven interface that includes customized navigation and search bars, and support for output to Adobe PDF and XML. XML can be used within Actuate in two ways: As a meta language for describing the contents of a report that can be used as input by any XML-based application or as a control managing the display of a report."

[June 29, 1999] "Next-Generation Web Banking -- With Help From Sun, Chase Manhattan Builds Financial 'Utility'." By Jeffrey Schwartz. In InternetWeek Issue 771 (June 28, 1999). "Chase Manhattan Bank has launched an integrated Web site that eventually will offer sophisticated customization and personalization. Using Java and XML technology, the site will allow searches across all of Chase's business units and will ultimately give customers a customized view of their profiles when they log on, Mazza said. Chase plans to heavily use XML to issue customized data to its employees. The bank also is building a database-centric approach to this site. Page templates, user information and other Web data will be hosted in Oracle 8i."

[June 29, 1999] "XML in the Java Platform." By Larry Cable (Senior Staff Engineer) and Mark Reinhold (Senior Staff Engineer) - Java Software, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Slides from the presentation at JavaOne '99. Overview of the 'XML Standard Extension'. [local archive copy]

[June 29, 1999] "RosettaNet decodes long-lost secrets of internetworking." By Dylan Tweney. In InfoWorld Volume 21, Issue 25 (June 19, 1999) [Net Prophet], page 81. "Earlier this month, the consortium launched the implementation phase of its project, called eConcert, and plans to have the system fully operational by Feb. 2, 2000. Once complete, every PC manufacturer, distributor, and reseller involved in RosettaNet will use the same standards to encode product catalog data, to exchange purchase orders, or to coordinate product launches. Each interaction is defined in a set of 'partner interface processes,' which describe in great detail not only transactions but business rules and models as well. Getting everything to work together between dozens of companies is such a complex act of coordination that RosettaNet refers to the companies involved in the pilot phase as 'dance partners.' The remarkable thing about RosettaNet is that it has brought so many competitors together on the same platform. Manufacturers such as Compaq and Hewlett-Packard, resellers such as Insight and CompUSA, and software vendors such as Microsoft and Netscape have put aside their differences to sit down together on the RosettaNet board." See "RosettaNet."

[June 29, 1999] "BizTalk Gains Momentum as Microsoft Garners Application Support." By Stephen Swoyer. In ent - The Independent Newspaper for Windows NT Enterprise Computing [Online] (June 09, 1999). "When Microsoft Corp. unveiled its BizTalk initiative in early March, a number of industry watchers were skeptical of the company's ability to execute on many of its forward-looking announcements. After all, Microsoft hadn't unveiled anything substantive yet, had it? In recent months the software giant has looked to deliver on its promises by partnering with a number of application vendors and eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) developers. As a result, BizTalk may now be poised for broader industry acceptance, shedding an initial perception of vaporware."

[June 29, 1999] "MQSeries Bolstered for Application Integration." By Christa Degnan and Antone Gonsalves. In PC Week [Online] Volume 16, Number 25 (June 21, 1999), page 15. "Enterprise application integration took a big step forward last week as IBM announced new versions of its MQSeries messaging middleware with Java and XML support. Version 2.0 of MQSeries Integrator, IBM's message broker, will ship in the fourth quarter with a new architecture that incorporates Extensible Markup Language. The upgrade will allow customers to define internal system message sets in XML and distribute them among system components via MQSeries. 'From the Java perspective, it opens them up to a whole new group of people . . . and adds further interoperability for them,' said Jeanine Fournier, an analyst with Aberdeen Group, in Boston. 'And support for XML is forward-thinking [for] when integration initiatives go outside the four walls [of an organization]'."

[June 28, 1999] "Toward an Open Rights Management Interoperability Framework." By John S. Erickson, Ph.D. (VP of Technology Strategy, Yankee Book Peddler, Inc.). (June 24, 1999). "With Xerox's upcoming unveiling of an XML-based version the Digital Property Rights Language (DPRL), I've been pondering to what extent Xerox and other rights management players (e.g., InterTrust) will work towards open standards. In particular, I'm curious to see if they'll work to foster a rights management interoperability framework analogous to (or perhaps falling within) the likes of ICE, cXML (Ariba), BizTalk (Microsoft), e-speak (HP), etc. From my understanding of Xerox's Rights Management Framework (RMF), this would minimally involve defining a set of tags such that the messaging aspects of RMF (perhaps RMF's rights services layer) could be expressed as XML-based messages that multiple applications/services could deal with. After participating for some time in various international "rights metadata" discussions, it is clear to me that a critical element to true distributed rights management will an open, service-level framework that enables peer-to-peer interoperation of rights management services and agents. On a broader scale, I've been trying to collect these thoughts as a working concept that I'm calling RightsTalk. I envision that the definition and evangelism for RightsTalk would be managed under a structure called RightsTalk.org. . ." See "Digital Property Rights Language (DPRL)."

[June 28, 1999] "CIM Creeps Ever Closer. The Common Information Model is already paying dividends, but more vendors need to get on board." By Elisabeth Horwitt. In Network World (June 21, 1999), pages 1, 59-62. "What makes all this possible is the Common Information Model (CIM), a key part of the Desktop Management Task Force's Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) blueprint for unified administration. CIM is a set of schemas for describing and sharing enterprisewide management information. In addition to CIM, WBEM includes these elements: (1) XML, a standardized structure for presenting and structuring management information in Web page format. XML will let management applications dynamically share CIM data. (2) HTTP for common transport of management information. (3) Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, which defines a directory infrastructure for storing and accessing management information." See "DMTF Common Information Model (CIM)." [local archive copy]

[June 26, 1999] "Microsoft's BizTalk Initiative: Do They Really Have the XML Religion? [Editor's Note]." By Jeff Hadfield [Editor in Chief, Visual Basic Programmer's Journal]. From DEV.X XML-Zone. June, 1999. "Microsoft's James Utzschneider, director of Microsoft's recently announced BizTalk initiative, recently preached that Microsoft has 'got the XML religion.' Those on the receiving end of the sermon -- congregations of jaded journalists -- reacted with a mix of hallelujahs and cries of heresy. Microsoft's BizTalk specification, now in version 0.8, is an 'open' spec guided by a standards body and is based entirely on W3C-standard XML formatting. The BizTalk Web site will house schemas (or 'contracts') that developers using XML and BizTalk have proven effective in specific, vertical implementations with specific software packages. To be posted publicly, the schemas must pass an automated standard conformance script (also promised to be freely viewable). These schemas, as Utzschneider explained them, dictate 'what I send you, what you send me back, what you promise, what you respond,' and even what specific documents are sent back and forth. He reassured listeners that Microsoft would not stray from the W3C standard but instead wanted to evangelize XML by providing a framework for showing how people can put XML to use. (For the record, he predicted that in four or five years, none of this would be an issue, since XML would be either supported natively in products or through Extended Schema Language, which maps one vendor's XML implementation to another's.)" See: "Biztalk Framework."

[June 25, 1999] "Weak Validation." By Rick Jelliffe. Academia Sinica Computing Centre. June, 1999. "Regular-expression content-models can be processed in various ways to obtain constraints which are easier to implement. Weak validation has some attractive properties that may coincide with the nature of many XML documents."

[June 25, 1999] "XML: the eXtensible Markup Language. An Introduction to XML." By Rick Jelliffe. Academia Sinica Computing Centre, Seminars and Tutorials. May/June, 1999. "The reason for XML's success is simple: (1) when computers are networked, they send chunks of information to each other; (2) this information has to be serialized, because data communication is serial (sending one piece of information after each other); (3) this serialized data has to be sent in some notation, which has to be understood by the receiving end; (4) and a standard notation for serialized data frees programmers and system developers to concentrate on more important issues: What is the structure of their data?, What is its type?, What does it mean?, What is should it look like?, or What is it supposed to do?. . ."

[June 25, 1999] "A Happy Doggy goes to the Box Factory." By Rick Jelliffe. Academia Sinica Computing Centre, Seminars and Tutorials. February, 1999. On XML and Databases ('suitable for 1 hour seminar').

[June 25, 1999] "From XML To Oracle8i And Back." By Ellis Booker. In InternetWeek (June 24, 1999). "Oracle this week released free XML components across its line of development tools. This will allow the exchange of data between XML-formatted documents and Oracle databases without the need for integrating third-party XML servers, the company said. Oracle rounded out its XML (Extensible Markup Language) interfaces for all major programming languages by releasing an XML parser for C and another for C++, and version 2.0 of its XML parser for Java. These and a previously released parser for Oracle's own PL/SQL language can be downloaded from Oracle's Web site. Version 2.0 of the XML parser for Java includes an Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) processor and a new high-performance architecture." See the news entry.

[June 25, 1999] "WordPerfect Office 2000." By [Staff]. In ZDNET TechWeb News (June 14, 1999). [From Computer Shopper] "Corel's WordPerfect Office 2000 has one advantage that neither of its rivals can claim: a devoted user base that dates back to the early days of DOS. The word processor from which the suite takes its name has been a favorite of journalists, lawyers. . . WordPerfect lets you publish documents to HTML, Trellix, and PDF; you can also build and validate SGML or XML documents. Most documents can be saved directly to your Web server. The suite now includes Trellix 2.1, an easy-to-use graphics-based Web editor that maintains associations intranet-wide. This can prove useful for small companies that do not have access to HTML expertise. WordPerfect Office doesn't include a full-fledged PIM..." Description of WP's XML/SGML support, according to the Feature Guide: "WordPerfect Office 2000 supports open standards and programming interfaces, such as HTML, ODBC, Java, SGML, and XML. XML Capabilities: XML (eXtensible Markup Language) provides a platform and application-independent environment for defining document architecture and document markup. WordPerfect 9 lets users create, validate, and save XML documents in a familiar WYSIWYG environment. A structured tree view, shown in a separate window, provides an easy-to-read layout of the full document. WordPerfect automatically inserts and maintains tag pairs to create XML files. WordPerfect provides an editing environment that includes wizards, automatic element insertion, and automatic generation of documents, which makes document creation quick and easy. Users can customize menus, toolbars, and keyboard mapping to create their own working environment. WordPerfect 9 in corporates the Document Type Definition (DTD), layout information, and mapping files into a single WordPerfect template. SGML Editor: WordPerfect 9 lets users create SGML documents in a familiar WordPerfect environment. WordPerfect 9 lets users edit, markup text, and validate tags in SGML documents. Users can employ WordPerfect writing tools, such as Spell Check and QuickCorrect. In addition, users can hide SGML codes in the document window and use WordPerfect text formatting to make SGML documents easier to read on screen. The SGML Editor also includes the following: (1) Structured views of the document, providing a WYSIWYG view on one side of the screen and a tree view on the other. (2) Enhanced graphics, which let users import and export markups with the SGML document. (3) Document compare features. (4) Automatic mapping for International Standards Organization (ISO) characters during the DTD compiling process to map multinational characters to the appropriate characters in the SGML Editor. Manual character mapping does not fall within the ISO character sets. (5) Enhanced importing and exporting capabilities."

[June 25, 1999] "Four Reasons You're Gonna Love XML." By Jesse Berst (Editorial Director, ZDNet AnchorDesk). In ZDNet AnchorDesk (June 23, 1999). "XML is short for 'Extensible Markup Language.' It is based on the same basic principles as HTML, the lingua franca of the Web. But HTML is like a generic first-grade reader: simplistic and imprecise. In contrast, XML tags information with precise descriptions that open up new worlds of possibility. After being hyped heavily as a makeover for the Web, XML is starting to measure up. The consortiums and their giant backers are weighing in. Consider Oracle's announcement yesterday of XML components that interface to development languages including Java, C and C++. Consider that Microsoft is supporting XML broadly in Office 2000. And that IBM recently announced it will deliver an XML toolkit as part of its WebSphere Studio. Here are four real benefits XML will offer you in the next few years: (1) A better way to search. . . (2) A better way to distribute and track information. . ."

[June 25, 1999] "The Web Will Be Smart - From HTML to XML [Future Technology]." By Sebastian Rupley. In PC Magazine (June 22, 1999). "The Internet is a vast repository of information, but the Web will soon be able to anticipate as well as deliver the precise information you need. Let's face it, the Web is pretty dumb. This isn't surprising, considering that all the Web was originally designed to do was display text (and later graphics) on any computer. In the future, Web sites will know a lot more about you. They'll also know more about their own content and the content of other sites. For the Web to give you the information you want, sites must be able to understand other sites' content. Today, XML (for eXtensible Markup Language) is emerging as the technology to do just that.

[June 24, 1999] "Oracle Extends XML Capabilities." By Charles Babcock. In Inter@ctive Week (June 24, 1999). "Oracle is extending the eXtensible Markup Language capabilities of the Oracle8 and 8i database management system to include the ability to parse XML for database applications written in C and C++ as well as Java. The new XML parsers are available free on the Oracle Technology Network Website. Oracle also released XSQL Servlet, a Java-based capability of generating a servlet or short server command program to govern reading and writing of XML data in the Oracle database. It plays a role opposite to the XML parser, taking data already in XML format and converting it into data for relational rows and tables."

[June 24, 1999] "Oracle Aims to Stoke XML Adoption with Free Offer." By Mark Hammond. In PC Week [Online] (June 23, 1999). "Oracle Corp. says it will help drive adoption of Extensible Markup Language with a new set of XML components that ease access to and use of legacy data. During its iDevelop '99 conference in Boston Tuesday, the database giant said it has made available for free download a pair of XML parsers for C and C++. Situated on an application server, the parsers enable developers to access legacy information and transport it between applications using XML, Oracle officials said. They complement existing parsers for Java and Oracle's PL/SQL language."

[June 24, 1999] "Is XML the Way for Corporate Data." By Wylie Wong and Mike Ricciuti. In CNet News.com (June 24, 1999). "[Feature: News Analysis] "Extensible Markup Language (XML), already expected to reshape the business-to-business communications landscape, also holds the potential to become the de facto standard for corporate data integration, an area where other technologies have failed to deliver. In essence, XML may hold the promise of delivering what more complicated and established technologies--including the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs), and Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM)--have not been able to do: give developers a simple, easy-to-use way to share data between computer systems from multiple vendors, said analysts and software makers."

[June 24, 1999] "Oracle XML Components Speak Most Languages." By Erich Luening. In CNet News.com (June 22, 1999). "Oracle today rolled out new XML components, offering interfaces to most major development languages, including Java, C, C ++, and PL/SQL. Available for free download from Oracle Technology Network, the new components allow developers to access information in legacy systems and transport it between business applications using XML. As XML has emerged as the de facto standard for describing data, its simplicity and broad industry adoption have made it the ideal choice for exchanging information between businesses, the company said." See the news entry.

[June 24, 1999] "Short Take: Y2K data testing tool gets XML support." By Wylie Wong. In CNet News.com (June 23, 1999). "Blackstone & Cullen has added XML support to its data management tool, so users can easily convert their legacy data into XML documents. Data Commander 2.3--a data testing tool for making legacy data Year 2000-compliant -- is available now and costs $2,000 for a workstation..." See the press release, "Data Commander 2.3 adds XML 1.0 support for automatic analysis, comparison, and conversion of complex flat-file data structures to eXtensible Markup Language."

[June 24, 1999] "Oracle Leverages XML to Link Disparate Applications." By Dana Gardner. In InfoWorld (June 22, 1999). "Oracle on Tuesday made available for free a series of Extensible Markup Language (XML) interfaces among popular programming languages that should ease the use of Oracle legacy data among and between applications. Announced at iDevelop 99 in Boston and available from Oracle's Technology Network at technet.oracle.com, the interfaces target programs written in Java, C, C++ and PL/SQL. Oracle XML Parser for C and Oracle XML Parser for C++ join Oracle's current parsers for Java and PL/SQL. The C and C++ components support both Document Object Model and Simple API for XML (SAX) interfaces, Oracle said. The parsers are for use on the Oracle Application Server for accessing data in Oracle8 and Oracle8i databases." See the news entry.

[June 24, 1999] "Open Source XML Application Server." By Dale Dougherty. From XML.com (June 23, 1999). "Planet 7 Technologies of Redmond, WA has released a beta version of its XML Application Server (XAS) under the Open Source licence. The XML Application Server is written in Java and requires a Java Virtual Machine. The XML Application Server allows XML documents to be shared and modified in real-time by multiple users whose interactions with the document become part of the document. It is intended for interactive, collaborative applications, especially where monitoring user activity in real-time is important."

[June 24, 1999] "Monitoring Updates with XML and Java. XSA (XML Software Autoupdate)." By Lisa Rein. From XML.com (June 23, 1999). "XSA is a Java-based tool for monitoring updates that uses XML to organize information about software products. . . Lars Marius Garshol, a graduate student at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo, developed XSA (XML Software Autoupdate) to help him maintain his Free XML Software list. Now XSA is being used by software vendors and developers get the word out about new products and updates. Over the course of its development, XSA has evolved into an alternative distribution network, connecting content providers with products and software they might not otherwise have ever come across. Currently, 29 vendors and developers are using this XSA-based polling system to provide information updates. In this article, we'll go through the steps required for software vendors and developers to participate, as well as how software list maintainers can implement their own XSA client-side system." See further details in the announcement for the XSA client.

[June 22, 1999] "Government Looks to RosettaNet to Cut Costs." By Nancy Dillon. In Computerworld (June 11, 1999). "If you think your supply chain is complex, consider the federal government. 'There are 600,000 items in the GSA [General Services Administration] catalog, 3 million in the Defense Agency's mall and another 130,000 items in the NASA catalog,' said Martin Wagner, associate administrator at the GSA's Office of Government-Wide Policy in Washington. At a RosettaNet conference here yesterday, Wagner said that GSA joined RosettaNet because it represents an opportunity to 'possibly save the taxpayers some money.' Efficiency gains should lead to lower product pricing, more vendors to choose from and faster time to market for the latest technologies." See also "RosettaNet XML Supply-chain Tests Begin" and the main entry, "RosettaNet."

[June 22, 1999] "Parsing and Sharing." By Charlie Heinemann. In extreme xml [Microsoft MSDN Column] (June 21, 1999). "Support for XML within products and applications makes XML viable. However, the true star of the show is the XML Standard itself. The XML Standard creates the opportunity for applications to ship data across the Web without concern for the platform on which the receiving application sits. The XML Standard enables interoperability between platforms and applications by allowing any application to interact with the data of another as long as that application can read in a text stream. [Conclusion:] XML is the glue that connects disparate systems across the Web. In the Web world (or even in the intranet of a large company), you do not have control over the applications and platforms that users run. Yet, you still want to be able to complete transactions between as many applications as possible. This means that you must be able to expose your data in ways that make it accessible by the largest number of applications. In the same vein, you must also be able to process the data that is generated by the largest number of applications. XML is not the most appropriate data format for all situations. However, it is the most appropriate data format if you are interested in shipping data across the Web, and if you are interested in making your data available across the Web via such protocols as HTTP."

[June 21, 1999] "From the Editor in Chief: New Web site brings new information to readers." By Sandy Reed. In InfoWorld Volume 21, Issue 24 (June 14, 1999), page 71. "The InfoWorld Web site has a new look this week to go with a raft of new capabilities designed to make it more useful for both our print and our online readers. It has a new name, InfoWorld.com -- replacing InfoWorld Electric -- but the same URL, www.infoworld.com. The major changes include an improved search engine, a more accessible navigation system, additional research tools, and more versatile reader Forums. . . The enabling technology behind the new site is Extensible Markup Language, or XML. Complicating the task was our requirement that the system tie into the Quark Publishing System, which we use for the weekly print production of InfoWorld. Associate Managing Editor Ross Owens created a custom program that enables us to publish in print, to the Web site, or to both. And Publishing Systems Manager David Minehart worked to extend Quark's capabilities to ensure our XML tags would remain valid throughout the production process. Using XML tags for the content lets us create better packages of related material, such as special reports and themed sections, such as the On the Road reports from JavaOne this week and PC Expo next week."

[June 21, 1999] "ERP Woes." By Suzanne Hildreth. In Server/Workstation Expert Volume 10, Number 6 (June 1999), pages 58-63. "Where once a single, tightly integrated suite of enterprise applications seemed like the perfect solution, some companies are now finding that the tight integration is creating its own difficulties. . ." [Hope for the Long Haul - XML (pages 61-62)]

[June 21, 1999] "Trip Report: WWW8 in Toronto." By Mark Walter and Luke Cavanagh. In Seybold Report on Internet Publishing Volume 3, Number 10 (June, 1999), pages 21-26. "Held last month in Toronto, the Eighth International WWW Conference served as a touchstone for the W3C's agenda as it struggles to build consensus and standards in the midst of tremendous growth. Though they have a decidedly academic tone, with an emphasis on research and barely a nod to commercial interests, the international Web conferences often serve as milestones for Web standards. Standards represent industry consensus; they pave the rough trails of innovation in asphalt and concrete. On the Web, where innovation has been streaking forward at a breakneck pace, previous WWW conferences have placed stakes in the ground-the publishing of a new version of HTML, or the launch of a new initiative-that gave some, at least, a chance to pause and look around before plunging forward. This year's spring event, more reflective than ebullient, left two such markers: the release of the W3C's accessiblity guidelines and the publishing of the first working draft of XML Schema. In different ways, both efforts reflect the commitment of the W3C's director, Tim Berners-Lee, to help guide the evolution of the universal hypertext he created . . ."

[June 21, 1999] "E-Book Mania: PC-Based Products Jostle the Bandwagon. [PC-Based E-Books: A Market Overview.]" By Steve Edwards, Victor Votsch, and Mark Walter. In Seybold Report on Internet Publishing Volume 3, Number 10 (June, 1999), pages 1, 9-19. "The rise of hand-held e-books has sparked a resurgence in PC-based electronic books, and a wave of vendors looking to sell e-books over the Web. We profile the offerings of six new vendors and update readers on three related developments: the Clio/Tripad notebooks, emerging e-book standards, and the latest deals by hand-held e-book vendors. . . Two vendor-neutral standards are under development for e-books. The first, Open E-Book (OEB), is a file format for the books, independent of any specific reading device. The initial draft is expected later this month. The second, Electronic Book Exchange (EBX), is a specification covering e-book distribution and copyright protection. Its first draft is expected later this year. . ." Some portion of this article is online from XML.com. For other information on OEB, see "Open eBook Initiative."

[June 21, 1999] "Poet upgrades its XML-aware content management system. XML extensions to Cold Fusion; improved UI, authoring and multilingual support. " By Mark Walter. In Seybold Report on Internet Publishing Volume 3, Number 10 (June, 1999), page 31. "Poet Software has improved its Web publishing facilities by implementing XML extensions to Allaire's Cold Fusion as part of the 2.0 upgrade to Poet's Content management System. The upgrade also adds a graphical user interface for component-level content management, plug-ins for authoring tools and support for multlingual publishing. The Web publishing component, called Web Factory, has changed from a homegrown application into one that interacts with Cold Fusion, the popular middleware product from Allaire. Poet has written 13 extension tags to the Cold Fusion Markup Language that provide component-level navigation, browsing and exporting of XML document structures from within the Poet CMS. . ." See also the press release, ""POET Software to Ship Version 2.0 of its Content Management Suite. First to Bring XML Content Server to Market Now Expands Functionality."

[June 21, 1999] "RVC de-Quarking tool helps Thomson publish to the Web Atomik extracts XML to a database, outputs HTML on the fly. [Thomson is first to buy RVC's Atomik Quark extraction tool.]" By Mark Walter. In Seybold Report on Internet Publishing Volume 3, Number 10 (June, 1999), page 33. "A new system for extracting XML-tagged text from Quark documents and publishing them on the Web was announced late last month by a small UK Web consultancy firm. RVC, a start-up of five people, announced the release Atomik-XT at the Magazines '99 show in London. Its first customer is Thomson Financial, which publishes International Financing Review. Atomik XT, priced at $20,000, has several modules. Atomik Archiver is an automated program that extracts text from XPress documents, marks up the text in XML and loads the tagged text into an object database. An XML editor, written in Java and connected to the database through a CORBA interface, is supplied to enable editorial staff to correct or amend the resulting XML data. . ." ['Atomik uses XML (eXtensible Markup Language) to automate the process of creating fully indexed and searchable web sites from content stored in QuarkXpress documents. Until now, publishers wishing to create online archives of their magazines have been hampered by the difficulty of extracting content from desk-top publishing file formats, such as QuarkXpress. Using Atomik can reduce the time spent each week/month updating a web site from several days to just a few minutes. . . ']

[June 21, 1999] "First Look: GoLive 4 for Mac, Windows." By Peter Dyson. In Seybold Report on Internet Publishing Volume 3, Number 10 (June, 1999), page 20. The Mac-based WYSIWYG page editor has been ported to Windows and there are a few new features, but this is primarily the `Adobification' release. . . . [XML ready]. GoLive 4.0 uses a tag database for code generation and validation. A minimal DTD is included, and users can import others. GoLive's internal code generator is driven by a database of tags, which initially contains a minimal DTD. More elaborate structures can be imported. At first glance, it seems that GoLive will be highly configurable; but we haven't yet experimented with this feature. In this release, the real value of the change in underlying architecture has not been brought to the user interface." See the press release, "Adobe Delivers Adobe GoLive 4.0 for Windows. For the First Time Windows Customers Reap the Benefits of GoLive's Powerful, Visual Web Design Capabilities."

[June 21, 1999] "Guarding content. Xerox Enters the Rights Management Arena with ContentGuard. ContentGuard offers persistent protection with a small footprint." By Victor Votsch. In Seybold Report on Internet Publishing Volume 3, Number 10 (June, 1999), pages 27-28. [The Latest Word] "Xerox jumps into digital rights management with an end-to-end suite for protecting documents. ContentGuard, which was developed at Xerox's PARC research facility, also differs from most rights-management products in its server-based operation. It does not require the reader to install any client-side software in order to access documents. A small rights file is sent over the Web with the content. ContentGuard generates on-the-fly Self-Protecting Documents (SPD) that contain information on access rights. SPD files are encrypted and contain information specific to the user and the rights associated with a document. The SPD can determine the status of a user's request to upgrade his rights (print in addition to view) by checking with a master record on a secure Web server." See "Digital Property Rights Language (DPRL)."

[June 21, 1999] "Tim Berners-Lee Keynotes WWW8." By Dianne Kennedy. In XML Files: The XML Magazine Issue 15 (June, 1999). [Report/summary for the WWW8 presentation of May 12, 1999.] "Berners-Lee outlined the events of what he believes to be the first decade of the Web. . . [And] What's Next? According to Berners-Lee, the goal for 10 years is for the Web to become 'Intercreative Space.' The Web should allow one to be creative with others. As you read today, so can you should be able to write in the future. If you notice a connection, make a link and collaborate with others. Our new W3C standards provide a foundation. But we need a new generation of products and infrastructure to support this goal. Moving forward has challenges in a number of areas. . . " See also the presentation slides for "Challenges of the second decade" (WWW8 Keynote).

[June 21, 1999] "Industry Fragments as it Promotes Use of XML." By Dianne Kennedy. In XML Files: The XML Magazine Issue 15 (June, 1999). "Recently two separate efforts to promote the use of XML on the Web were announced [XML.ORG, BizTalk]. Ironically, the already bitterly divided high-tech sector seems even more clearly divided by these very similiar efforts to 'accelerate the widespread adoption of Extensible Markup Language (XML) for electronic commerce and application integration' . . . The elephants are clearly Microsoft and Sun. So in the end, the ultimate question is whether these two "elephants" can somehow find a way to work together to enable the business activities of us 'ants'. The good news is that both of the competing industry groups recognize that XML alone is not enough for commerce to flourish on the Web. The availability of common tag sets (vocabularies or schemas) with clearly understood semantics is critical to facilitate business applications. Each Web faction is attempting to create a environment condusive to the rapid growth of Web-based business, yet because they (Microsoft / Sun) rarely cooperate outside the confines of the W3C, each is fostering XML in their own way. Each has made the mistake of championing a different standards organization to operate with or within. The Sun and Microsoft camps at times succeeded in working together for the common good. They certainly have done that as members of the W3C. But it seems that establishing the XML clearing house and repository is not within the scope of W3C. So they cannot work together in that forum. . ." See "The BizTalk Framework" and "XML.ORG - The XML Industry Portal."

[June 21, 1999] "Industry Analysts Evaluate ICE." By Dianne Kennedy. In XML Files: The XML Magazine Issue 15 (June, 1999). - "ICE Executive Summit: GCARI and the ICE Authoring Group held the first of the ICE Summit in New York at the Marriott Eastside on May 17. The two day business and technical summit was attended by 60 leading executives representing publishers and others interested in making the shift to doing business on the Web. The opening keynote presentation was provided by Don DePalma from Sensible Systems (formerly from Forrester Group). Don provided the group with a brief introduction to ICE and the business rationale for this specification. . . GCARI and the ICE Authoring Group will be holding the second in a series of ICE Executive Summits at the Drake Hotel in Chicago on July 11 and July 12. You can find more information and register for this summit online." On ICE, see Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol.

[June 21, 1999] "Bluestone Software hones its IPO axe." By R. Scott Raynovich . In Red Herring [Insider] (June 16, 1999). "Some companies like to extend the breadth of their financing in the mezzanine round that usually precedes an IPO. Bluestone Software has taken this idea to the extreme: a $25 million third round of financing, announced on Monday, that includes 16 new venture capital firms. . . Several of the company's new products were demonstrated this week at the JavaOne trade show in San Francisco. These include Sapphire/Web 6.0, which now includes the ability to upgrade the software while it's still running, as well as a suite of XML tools, including a visual development product."

[June 18, 1999] "E-Book Standards Edge Forward." By Victor Votsch. From XML.com (June 17, 1999). "Two vendor-neutral standards are under development for e-books. The first, Open E-Book (OEB), is a file format for the books, independent of any specific reading device. The initial draft is expected later this month. The second, Electronic Book Exchange (EBX), is a specification covering e-book distribution and copyright protection. Its first draft is expected later this year. The OEB 1.0 spec attempts to create a set of markup tools that could be applied universally to a wide range of books. The markup for the book itself consists of HTML 3.2 tags (with the addition of the 'span' tag), with CSS 1.0 style sheets, all specified in an XML document type definition. Associated with the book are XML-encoded metadata that make use of the Dublin Core taxonomy. . . In parallel with OEB, a second group of about 40 companies [Electronic Book Exchange - EBX] is developing a standard method of copyrighting digital books that are distributed over the Internet. The intent is for EBX to support both PDF and Open E-Book formats." [Reprinted from The Seybold Report on Internet Publishing Volume 3, No. 10.] For other information on OEB, see "Open eBook Initiative."

[June 18, 1999] "Group Builds Multilateral Support for Commercial Language -- OASIS Nourishes XML Drive." By Nicolas Mokhoff. In Electronic Engineering Times [Online] Issue 1065 (June 14, 1999) [Systems & Software]. "The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) made the Web the world's library. Now the Extensible Markup Language (XML) is out to make the Web the world's commercial and financial hub. At the first XMLOne [conference], an international users conference held here last month, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) announced the creation of XML.Org (www.xml.org), the first global XML industry portal to be operated by a nonprofit corporation devoted to open information exchange. More than 20 corporations, organizations and individual experts have rallied to voice their support for the group's formation. Even Microsoft Corp., which has been pursuing its own XML standardization efforts, has joined the XML industry consortium, which is also supported by IBM and Sun Microsystems. The multipartisan support has eased fears about a platform-based splintering of the XML market. Microsoft and OASIS had been competing to establish industry consensus and provide a forum for XML definition."

[June 18, 1999] "'Smart' Data is XML's Edge." By [Staff]. In Electronic Engineering Times [Online] Issue 1065 (June 14, 1999). "XML is the markup language of choice for analyzing, extracting, sorting, styling and customizing dynamic information to create a personalized Web experience for the end user. HTML tells how the data should look, but XML tells you what it means. . .Unlike HTML, where text is just text to be rendered in a uniform way, XML can control the rendition, allowing data processing, document processing or both, simultaneously."

[June 18, 1999] "XML After 1.0: You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet." By James Tauber. In IEEE Internet Computing Volume 3, No. 3 (May/June 1999), pages 100-102. "The prevalence of XML in discussions of the Web and its application to such diverse application domains in the past year have almost eclipsed the fact that the 1.0 specification, approved as a W3C Recommendation in February 1998, is only the first part of the 'structured documents' originally envisioned. The specifications for two more parts -- hypertext link types and a stylesheet language -- are nearing completion, and the W3C chartered new working groups last year to generate new members of the family. Some of XML's future features will help fulfill the original dream of structured Web documents and internationalized media-independent publishing; others will make it easier to use XML for emerging applications. . .Ironically, it is perhaps because XML 1.0 says and doesn't so little that people are using it to do so much. It is rapidly becoming the foundation for most new (and many old) ways of interchanging information. Equally ironic, XML 1.0 doesn't technically do anything that hasn't been possible with SGML for more than a decade. (Perhaps, as suggested by some, the letters XML just sound sexier.) In this column, I will survey parts of the total XML picture that will likely be completed this year. Some of these will fulfill the original dream of structured Web documents and internationalized media-independent publishing; others will make it easier to use XML for emerging applications that weren't part of the original focus. But first, it is worth looking at what the language we have now actually does to standardize information interchange. . ."

[June 17, 1999] "Web Application Server -- Bluestone Software Sapphire/Web Release 6." By [Staff]. In Network Computing Issue 1012 (June 17, 1999). "Bluestone Software's Sapphire/Web Release 6 application server adds features such as increased XML support and enhanced failover speed and functionality for electronic-commerce Internet sites. A QoS (Quality of Service) facility fosters the imposition of different classes of service and resource prioritization for different classifications of users. These service levels can be reset dynamically while the user is visiting the site. Control over both the role-based security model and thread pooling is more granular in this version."

[June 16, 1999] "XML Protocols: Providing a Complete XML-Based Data Interchange Solution." An Innovision White Paper. June, 1999. "The XML Protocol white paper defines and clarifies the concept of XML Protocols. In addition, it provides an in-depth look at Innovision's Nepal XP technology that provides developers with a set of enterprise XML tools for modeling and creating XML Protocol languages as well as building servers and thin-clients that exchange information using XML protocols. XML's use of markup to organize and tag information yields structured information that is ripe for interchange between two or more parties, but XML itself stops short of specifying how this interchange is to take place. This is where XML Protocols step in to take XML to the next level: by providing for the robust, reliable interchange of XML-encoded information via the Internet. The XML Protocol concept augments the power of XML with the following features: (1) Data Abstraction [XML Protocols introduce the notion of a Protocol-Specific Object Model (PSOM) for conceptualizing the information that is to be interchanged. This relieves developers of the need to know the details of XML and provides a more concrete data model than existing XML tools do. This allows developers to quickly create reliable, high-performance XML applications], (2) Data Validation, (3) Out-of-Band Data, (4) Interchange Models, (5) Protocol Management."

[June 16, 1999] "Migrating Web Sites to XML. AT&T's Move from HTML Results in Arbortext, Documentum Alliance." By Christa Degnan. In PC Week [Online] Volume 16, Number 24 (June 14, 1999), page 36. Arbortext Inc. and Documentum Inc. have formed a strategic alliance to integrate the two companies' document technologies to make XML easier to use in enterprise information management. The arrangement is the first in a new partnership program being launched by Arbortext this month and is the result of work being conducted at AT&T Corp. AT&T is in the preliminary stages of migrating all its sites, both internal and external, to XML from HTML. To date, AT&T's Internet, intranet and extranet pages have been developed through a proprietary publishing process and Microsoft Corp.'s Office and FrontPage tools."

[June 16, 1999] "Sun Releases Java 2 Enterprise Edition." By John Webster. In Internet World (June 14, 1999), pages 1, 17. "At this week's JavaOne Developer Conference in San Francisco, Sun Microsystems Inc. will ratchet the technology up another notch with the official unveiling of Java 2 Enterprise Edition and demonstrations of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 1.1. According to Gartner Group projections, 60 percent of all new IT business development within companies will be using Java by 2004. XML (eXtensible Markup Language) will also play a role as the standard for 'deployment descriptors' used to configure EJB components. According to Jeremy Burton, vice president of tools marketing at Oracle, XML helps the server 'remember' changes that users make to their applications. 'XML is important to the EJB spec,' he said, 'because more customers are buying off-the-shelf Web-based applications, and those have to be customized to their business'."

[June 16, 1999] "IBM Injects XML, Java Messaging Support Into MQSeries." By Ted Smalley Bowen. In InfoWorld (June 15, 1999). "IBM this week provided updates of its plans to support emerging Internet programming standards, and underscored new features that are working their way into the MQSeries product line. As outlined Monday during IBM's Java strategy briefing at JavaOne in San Francisco, and detailed Tuesday in a teleconference with reporters, Big Blue's software group is adding support for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the Java Message Service (JMS) to its MQSeries line. MQSeries includes a base enterprise messaging platform, a message broker, and rules engine (MQSeries Integrator), and a workflow program (MQSeries Workflow). IBM touts MQSeries for a wide range of application integration, workflow, business process automation, and related messaging tasks. MQSeries support of the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C)'s XML meta data language, due later this year and next, uses XML at the transport level, in inter-application communications, and for message transformation -- such as translating legacy Cobol or C++ messages to XML or vice versa, according to Bill Reedy, vice president of transaction systems for the IBM software group." See the announcement: "IBM makes Business integration easier. New Releases of MQSeries Family to Feature XML and Java-based Messaging Capabilities."

[June 15, 1999] "Convertir XML en HTML utilizando XSLT." By Joaquin Bravo Montero. In Taller Web (June 1999). "Este es el primer capítulo de una serie de artículos en los que iremos estudiando qué posibilidades y herramientas existen hoy en día para convertir un documento XML en HTML y cómo visualizarlo en un navegador." See also the associated Web site with XML resources (XML en castellano).

[June 15, 1999] "DrLove : Document Resource Locations." By Rick Jelliffe [Computing Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan]. May 1999. "This is a discussion draft for Document Resource Locations for the consideration of the W3C I18N IG and other interested W3C groups. It comes out of previous work known as XCS (Extensible Character Set). This paper, Document Resource Locations, proposes a mechanism to link XML and XHTML documents to arbitrary resources. The benefits of being able to attacth arbitrary resources to a document are well-known. The Macintosh was largely based on this idea: Macintosh files have a resource fork as well as a data fork. However, for efficiency on the WWW, bundling data and resources together is not practical; indeed linking can be regarded as the opposite of bundling."

[June 15, 1999] "Sun's Bill Joy talks about Jini, Java, and the competition." By Ephraim Schwartz . In InfoWorld (June 14, 1999). "As a preview to Sun Microsystems' JavaOne conference opening Tuesday at the Moscone Center here, the company announced Monday morning that both Java and Jini training courses will now be available via the Internet. . . On XML and Jini, Joy said the best marriage is when XML and Java are used together, with XML as data descriptive technology and Jini to include the meaning with the data. 'Data alone can be misinterpreted,' Joy said. 'Combining XML with Jini for business process into a JavaBean would make the most sense'."

[June 15, 1999] "IBM Opens MQSeries With XML." By Ellis Booker. In InternetWeek Issue 769 (June 14, 1999), pages 1, 57. "IBM is adding XML support to its widely installed MQSeries middleware, opening the door to standards-based integration among disparate applications. IBM this week will detail plans to add XML support to both the core MQSeries message-queueing software and the MQSeries Integrator message broker. MQSeries Integrator, unveiled earlier this year, lets customers route, translate and exchange messages between applications based on the content of the message, not only the message's header field. Version 2.0, due in the fourth quarter, will add the ability to transform a message in transit between applications into XML. This function is now performed with predefined, application-specific data formats using technology from New Era of Networks (NEON) Inc."

[June 15, 1999] "Sun Embraces Standards For Server Management." By Tim Wilson and Jeffrey Schwartz. In InternetWeek Issue 769 (June 14, 1999), pages 1, 55. "Sun Microsystems is making it easier for IT administrators to monitor and control Sun Solaris and Windows NT servers with standards-based management tools. Those same standards will be supported in a repository for Solaris management information. Sun will deliver these capabilities by supporting in Solaris the Distributed Management Task Force's Web-Based Enterprise Management guidelines. WBEM defines standards for formatting, storing and exchanging systems and network management information. DMTF is a consortium that includes Sun, as well as competitors Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Microsoft. A key element of Solaris WBEM Services is support for the XML/HTTP specification, which will let management applications work equally well with Unix or Windows clients. XML/HTTP defines a method for encoding management data in XML and transmitting it via HTTP. The specification could be finalized at this week's meeting of the DMTF. XML also eliminates the need for management vendors to choose between competing object languages such as Microsoft's COM and Sun's Java-based RMI." See "DMTF Common Information Model (CIM)."

[June 15, 1999] "New Products Integrate Java, XML." By Ellis Booker. In InternetWeek Issue 769 (June 14, 1999), page 9. "Leading the news at the JavaOne show this week in San Francisco will be Sun Microsystems' official unveiling of the Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), which defines a set of standard, service-level Java APIs. J2EE lets Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) on different application servers interoperate across networks. That's because J2EE will use the standard Corba/IIOP communications protocol. Extensible Markup Language (XML) will also be in force at JavaOne. Reportedly, an XML API is one of the products that will be bundled under the J2EE umbrella along with the Java Transaction API, Java Message Service and Java Server Pages. XML is being proffered by many vendors as an optional integration mechanism-and arguably easier than encapsulating business logic in JavaBeans-for reaching legacy data or as a handy vehicle for linking business applications."

[June 14, 1999] "XML App Eases Integration Of E-Commerce Data." By Richard Karpinski. In InformationWeek (June 14, 1999). "On Monday OnDisplay will roll out CenterStage, a set of XML-based applications that let users integrate apps and exchange data between them. The CenterStage suite consists of five applications: eContent, eIntegrate, eNotify, eBizXchange, and eSyndicate. The suite's highlights include the ability to integrate with a variety of back-office and legacy systems; aggregate data from those systems in a variety of formats, leveraging XML technology; and share customized cuts of the content and data with a wide variety of trading partners." See "OnDisplay Unveils The CenterStage Product Suite For Powering E-Business Portals."

[June 29, 1999] "Supply-Chain Project Enters Pilot Phase." By Richard Karpinski. In InternetWeek Issue 769 (June 14, 1999), page 7. "RosettaNet, the tech-industry effort to standardize e-business processes, began pilot tests last week with 30 companies. The group, made up of all the major PC-industry players, as well as other members of the IT supply chain, said the participating companies have committed to make use of the standards by Feb. 2, 2000, the so-called eConcert Readiness Day. The standards effort, spearheaded by group leader and Ingram Micro executive Fadi Chehade, defined so-called partner interface processes (PIPs) between member companies. The PIPs define how transactions are conducted up and down the IT supply chain, including between manufacturers, software publishers, distributors, resellers, integrators and end users."

[June 14, 1999] "RosettaNet Jumps on XML Bandwagon. [Updated Article]" By Stannie Holt and Matthew Nelson. In InfoWorld Volume 21, Issue 24 (June 14, 1999), page 8. "Dozens of PC makers, suppliers, and buyers involved in the RosettaNet e-commerce standards initiative have committed to using eConcert -- the group's new e-commerce language based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) -- by next Feb. 2. They made their announcement at a press conference here Thursday. However, one RosettaNet member, CommerceOne, thinks the eConcert project is being too timid in clinging to older, EDI-type syntax. The eConcert project is intended to help trading partners collaborate more effectively by aligning not just their definitions of 'price,' 'ship date,' 'motherboard,' etc., but by aligning the ways they do business through so-called partner interface processes (PIPs), said RosettaNet CEO Fadi Chehade. The RosettaNet nonprofit group includes makers of chips, components, and PCs, as well as VARs, retailers, integrators, major buyers such as the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), delivery services, and e-commerce or enterprise resource planning software vendors. A total of 39 companies or agencies are committed to going live with RosettaNet PIPs by 'eConcert Readiness Day' on Feb. 2, 2000, the group announced." See also: "RosettaNet."

[June 12, 1999] "JavaOne: New Products Integrate Java, XML." By Ellis Booker. In CMP TechWeb Technology News (June 10, 1999). "Leading the news at the JavaOne show next week in San Francisco will be SunMicrosystems' official unveiling of the Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), which defines a set of standard, service-level Java APIs. XML will also be in force at JavaOne. Reportedly, an XML API is one of the products that will be bundled under the J2EE umbrella along with the Java Transaction API, Java Message Service, and Java Server Pages. XML is being proffered by many vendors as an optional integration mechanism -- and arguably easier than encapsulating business logic in JavaBeans -- for reaching legacy data or as a handy vehicle for linking business applications. One company exploiting XML is Novera Software Inc., which will debut version 4.5 of its Novera Java middleware product."

[June 12, 1999] "Financial XML Standard Proposed." By Bruce Caldwell. In CMP TechWeb Technology News (June 11, 1999). "A proposed standard for wholesale financial-services transactions on the Internet was releasedyesterday by J.P.Morgan & Co. and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Based on XML -- the rapidly growing Internet standard for data sharing between applications -- the Financial Products Markup Language is designed to handle integration of Internet services such as electronic trading and confirmations, risk analysis, and the exchange of market data. J.P. Morgan is working on a suite of client services that employ the standard." See "Financial Products Markup Language."

[June 11, 1999] "How to Promote Organic Plurality on the WWW." By Rick Jelliffe [Academia Sinica Computing Centre, Taipei, Taiwan]. June 11, 1999. In order to build an open WWW that provides a level-playing field such that innovators can support it: "The concrete suggestions are these: 1) To prevent 'data kidnap', every new technology or application class introduced onto the WWW must be preceded by a mechanism, as an intermediate layer, to allow alternatives to that technology. 2) To prevent 'workflow kidnap', that mechanism should have a phase attribute. 3) To prevent 'data lockout', names should be fixed for a schema: vocabularies that require a schema with to check names based on regular expressions should be deprecated."

[June 11, 1999] "eXtensible Server Pages (XSP) Layer 1." By Stefano Mazzocchi and Ricardo Rocha. From the Java Apache Cocoon project. The document "specifies an XML namespace that addresses a complete region of web publishing, that of logic-based, dynamic content generation. This language is introduced to fill an existing gap between the W3C specifications and working draft and the increasing demand for a flexible server side approach based on the new XML paradigm. [The draft thus] specifies both an XML document type defintion and a development methodology to generate dynamic XML by server side processing of client's requests. Such a specification is useful to define an open and standard way to develop and maintain dynamic XML server pages. The technology described in this document was designed to complete the XML-based publishing framework defined by the Cocoon Project and it's mainly targetted on this project, even if the final goal of this effort is to submit a request to a standard body (such as W3C) for final recomandation." [local archive copy]

[June 11, 1999] "Building a Better Metasearch Engine. [Applied XML Tutorial.]" By Ralf Westphal. From XML.com (June 08, 1999). "This two-part tutorial demonstrates how XML can be used to improve how search engines work. It shows how to automate retrieval of search results and when those results are available in XML, instead of HTML, how much more easily they can be organized and displayed for users. This demo requires IE 5 because the XML processing is done on the client side. [Conclusion:] This is how easy the future of metasearch engines could look with XML. Some XML here, a bit of XML DOM there, a spoon full of XSL, plus a trifle of XQL. It's all standards and drafts, little coding, mostly declarations. So, be cool and brush up your database sites with a programmatic query interface returning XML data."

[June 11, 1999] "Benchmarking XML Parsers on Solaris." By Steven Marcus. From XML.com (June 08, 1999). 'How do various XML parsers perform on the Solaris platform, compared to Linux? In particular, do the Java-based XML parsers have any edge on Solaris?' "Clark Cooper's Benchmarking XML Parsers article is an even-handed attempt to compare the relative performance of XML parsing using C, Java, Perl and Python. After reading the article [ . . .], I was curious if the results reported would be similar to those obtained using Sun's Solaris-optimized Java virtual machine. Solaris is the 'showcase' environment for Java -- and Sun claims to have spent much time and money optimizing Java for its platform. Table 1 summarizes the results [for: C-Expat, Java-xp, Java-xml4j, Java-xml-tr2, Perl, Python]. . ."

[June 11, 1999] "The XSL Debate: One Expert's View." By Norman Walsh. From XML.com (June 09, 1999). 'Norm addresses the recent debate about the merits of XSL. As a member of the XSL committee, he said he found the debate disappointing because it was polarizing. He describes the fundamental principles behind XSL and why it is necessary for a fully functional Web. . .' "Recently, there has been some debate about the merits of XSL (the extensible style language, one of the original family of XML standards). This debate has taken place on several mailing lists and, most recently, was the featured topic on XML.com. My own experience with structured markup and stylesheets is extensive. I've written stylesheets using FOSIs, CSS, DSSSL, and XSL. Before my SGML days, I wrote them in TeX and LaTeX, I dabbled in Troff and my own home-grown formatters generating raw PostScript, and even an old IBM mainframe system called simply "Script". Several people have asked my opinion about the XSL debate, so here it is. What follows are my own observations and my personal feelings about the issue. Mostly, I find the whole debate rather disappointing. Disappointing because much of the debate seems to be framed in the most polarizing language possible and hardly seems designed to engender serious discussion. . ."

[June 10, 1999] "XML Development in Java. It's All in the Beans." By Maneesh Sahu. In Web Techniques (June 1999) [June 1999 Special Issue XML & Java: An Obvious Match.] "JavaBeans makes it easy to write XML applications. Maneesh shows you how to build one, and what's required to process XML documents in a Java program. Java is witnessing an increased integration with XML in enterprise application development. XML data is being processed within Java programs to produce data stores, messaging mechanisms, and complex views. When processing XML in Java, there's a set of tasks that is common to any application. First, we'll look at building an XML application from scratch to see what's required to process XML documents in a Java program. Then we'll use a set of functions that is available as XML JavaBeans. In fact, XML JavaBeans not only make it easier for programmers to write applications, they also make it possible for nonprogrammers to assemble nontrivial XML applications."

[June 10, 1999] "Why XML is Meant for Java. Exploring the XML/Java Connection." By Matthew Fuchs, Ph.D. In Web Techniques (June 1999) [June 1999 Special Issue XML & Java: An Obvious Match.] "Historically, there are interesting similarities between Java and XML -- socially, philosophically, and architecturally. But will the relationship last, or be upset by contenders such as Perl and Python? I'll examine three important aspects of the Java/XML relationship. First, I'll look at the actual reasons for Java's success with XML, and if there is some hidden affinity between them. Then, I'll briefly discuss two popular programming models for manipulating XML in Java. If you use Java for manipulating XML, you'll probably choose one of these. Thirdly, there are a couple of significant developments on the horizon: the decision to provide a standard Java API for manipulating XML and the current work on developing a next-generation schema language for XML -- both of which bolster the Java/XML relationship. Finally, I'll say a word or two on the future of this alliance."

[June 10, 1999] "XML Integration Platforms. Anatomy of an XML Server." By Bob Bickel. In Web Techniques (June 1999) [June 1999 Special Issue XML & Java: An Obvious Match.] "You're probably quite familiar with the design of a Web server. Bob acquaints you with XML servers and how they make it easier to write XML applications. The XML server is emerging as an important integration platform for developing applications that create/send and receive/process XML. This article will look at the design of an XML server and how it simplifies the task of writing XML applications. First, let's distinguish XML servers from something most of us are already familiar with -- Web servers. A Web server responds to user requests via HTTP and delivers HTML documents; it can also manage the interactions between a user and a back-end application via CGI or other application programming interfaces. An XML server is similar to a Web server in that you could use a browser to retrieve an XML document from it. But there are two things that make an XML server different: First, it provides a standard application interface for processing XML-based information and second, it provides a variety of communication alternatives for passing the XML documents to and from the XML server. An XML server, which can receive, interpret, and generate XML documents, is really designed to communicate with other applications or other servers, not with users. The XML server can be used to automate the interchange of information between different applications, or between different organizations. . ."

[June 10, 1999] "SQL-Based XML Structured Data Access." By Michael M. David. In Web Techniques (June 1999) [June 1999 Special Issue XML & Java: An Obvious Match.] "XML's strengths are in representing heirarchical information while SQL is better at processing data in rows and columns. Michael helps you understand how to combine the two. SQL and XML seem to have distinctly different strengths. XML is used to represent highly structured hierarchical information while SQL is intended for processing data represented as rows and columns in a relational database. Hierarchical data structures are excellent for organizing data because they have a singular, unambiguous point of view, making their semantics very powerful. Relational databases, on the other hand, are useful because they allow many different data-structure formations to be created dynamically from the same data. Because each is important, transforming relational data into a hierarchical structure will let us create XML documents from a database. We also want to do the reverse, which will let us import XML documents into a database. Using ANSI SQL's newer outer join operation, we can perform these transformations between relational data and XML."

[June 10, 1999] "Database Developer: Modeling, Metadata, and XML." By Ken North. In Web Techniques (June 1999) [June 1999 Special Issue XML & Java: An Obvious Match.] "Ken North takes a broad look at XML and its role in data modeling, and within the background of the many recent industry initiatives. The two previous columns in this space dealt with a cookbook approach to database development. This month I hope to provide enough information for you to decide whether to learn Object-Role Modeling (ORM), the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). UML and ORM are obviously modeling technologies, but where does XML fit into the picture? Why did I include XML with two obvious modeling technologies? XML is more than a document markup language -- it's a solution for content modeling and creating standards for content."

[June 10, 1999] "Patterns in XSL [Beyond HTML]." By Michael Floyd. In Web Techniques (June 1999) [June 1999 Special Issue XML & Java: An Obvious Match.] Michael Floyd shows you how to use XSL patterns to locate objects within the document tree. "Last month I showed how you can assemble a workbench of XML tools that together will let you serve XML documents from your Web site. One of the tools on that workbench, XML Enabler, is a Java servlet that lets you map an XSL style sheet to a specific browser. This, in turn, lets you attach a style sheet to an XML document that's capable of generating HTML specific to that browser's capabilities. Imagine being able to position a DIV block and have it look the same in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and in Netscape Navigator 4, or to be able to render an XML document in any browser, including Lynx. The strength in delivering such documents, as you'll see, comes from the eXtensible Style Language (XSL). There's a lot to XSL, so this month, I'd like to show how you can use patterns to locate objects within the document tree. From there, you'll be able to specify template rules that let you format these objects."

[June 10, 1999] "XML's Achilles Heel [The Last Page]." By Dale Dougherty. In Web Techniques (June 1999) [June 1999 Special Issue XML & Java: An Obvious Match.] "Editorial Director, Dale Dougherty tells the tale of XML's Achilles Heel. SGML provides the document type definition (DTD) as a formal mechanism for defining tag sets for different kinds of documents. A DTD doesn't entirely solve the problem of semantics but it's useful documentation for which tags are possible and in what combinations they might be used. (DTDs themselves need to be documented to describe what the tags are intended to represent.) SGML experts thought that DTDs would be created by industry trade groups made up of domain specialists. This made sense in theory but often not in practice. DTDs have become the Achilles heel of SGML, and now XML. It's a big question for most users: Which DTD should I use?"

[June 10, 1999] "Computer Industry Integrates Info-exchange." By Tim Clark. In CNEt News.com (June 10, 1999). "A consortium of major computer industry players today outlined an ambitious schedule for implementing new standards for exchanging information among suppliers, manufacturers, and computer buyers. RosettaNet aims to have protocols for 75-100 types of communications ready to implement by February 2, 2000. Along the way, it has two interim deadlines -- one later this month for three pilots to be completed, and the other in August, when five more are due." See XML details in "RosettaNet"

[June 10, 1999] "Progress Eyes App Outsourcing, Java Messaging Services." By Dana Gardner. In InfoWorld (June 10, 1999). "Progress Software plans to employ emerging Java and Extensible Markup Language (XML) standards to unite its Apptivity and Progress servers, while positioning its existing and future products as platforms for application service providers (ASPs). In the last quarter of this year, Progress will deliver Vader, or Apptivity Server 4.0, an Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB)-, XML-, and Java Messaging Service (JMS)- enabled server that will set the stage for Vader+ in 2000, the company said earlier this month. JMS is an emerging standard that will be introduced as part of the Java2, Enterprise Edition set of specifications next week at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco. When it officially arrives in December, it will offer a cross-platform message queuing alternative to IBM's MQSeries and Microsoft's MSMQ middleware."

[June 10, 1999] "A 'Rosetta Stone' for the Web? The XML Lingo Could Make it Easier to Find and Use Data." By Neil Gross and Michael Moeller. In BusinessWeek [Online] (June 14, 1999). "Miracle that it is, the World Wide Web is not without shortcomings. Mind-numbing delays and irrelevant search results are enough to try the patience of the most saintly Web surfers. And E-business companies have a long litany of woes, ranging from security problems to difficulties in swapping data across the Net. . . For XML to perform as promised, there must be agreement on the tags used within various markets and interest areas. While XML's basic language was standardized last year by the World Wide Web Consortium, the tags that will be used to define specific data for banking, telecommunications, retailing, and other areas are still up for grabs. But software rivals aren't waiting. IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems -- plus a host of E-business startups such as Ariba Technologies and Commerce One -- are all trumpeting their unique expertise in XML. So the technology is already starting to fracture. Without better coordination, warns Timothy S. Sloane, an analyst with Boston's Aberdeen Group, the whole idea of universal standards 'could drift into never-never land.' On May 25, a Boston-based standards group called OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) tried to draw a line against fragmentation. It created a central clearinghouse on the Web, called XML.org, to coordinate XML news and proposals for tags. Unfortunately, Microsoft Corp. had the same idea. One day before XML.org went live, Microsoft unveiled BizTalk.org as the main repository not only for its own XML tags and products but also for those of its partners in E-business, such as Ariba and Commerce One. . ." See also: 'TABLE: Activities That Beg for XML'. More on XML.ORG at "XML.ORG - The XML Industry Portal."

[June 10, 1999] "XML - The Future Markup Language?" By Anand Nandkumar. In The Hindu [Online edition of India's National Newspaper] (June 10, 1999). Just as the world is coming to terms with the electronic commerce revolution, the computing world really seems to be excited about a new language called XML or Extensible Markup Language that many people look upon to fulfil the promises of E-commerce. At the outset, this may seem like what was spoken of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) a few years ago, before the World Wide Web and its applications became ubiquitous, but a serious look at XML is bound to convince even the worst sceptics of its enormous potential."

[June 10, 1999] "W3C's Amaya Browser Simplifies Web Editing." By Jim Rapoza. In PC Week [Online] Volume 16, Number 23 (June 03, 1999), pages 37, 45. "In PC Week Labs' tests, Amaya 2.0, which was released last month, allowed us to easily edit Web pages as we viewed them with no prior downloading of the page necessary. We could use Amaya, which is truly WYSIWYG, to do sample changes to see how they worked before saving them to the Web site -- a process as seamless as saving a Microsoft Word document to a network drive. Documents can be saved as HTML or XHTML (Extensible HTML). As the W3C's experimental browser, Amaya adheres strictly to the HTML DTD (Document Type Definition), so Web pages with nonstandard HTML don't display properly. However, it is possible to customize the browser/editor to use another DTD, making Amaya a very attractive tool for Web-based content management. For many companies, though, creating a DTD is no small job. For images, Amaya supports the new Portable Network Graphics image format and has experimental support for scalable vector graphics. The browser/editor also includes a demonstration implementation of MathML, an Extensible Markup Language application that makes it possible to create Web pages that handle complex mathematical expressions."

[June 10, 1999] "Low-Cost EAI Tool Adds XML Support." By [Staff]. In InfoWorld Volume 21, Issue 23 (June 07, 1999), page 5. Note on Data Junction's addition of XML support to its Universal Transformation Suite.

[June 09, 1999] "RosettaNet Jumps on XML Bandwagon." By Matthew Nelson and Stannie Holt. In InfoWorld Electric (June 09, 1999). "The Extensible Markup Language (XML) will be the basis of RosettaNet's latest efforts at a shared electronic-commerce language for PC and software makers and dealers. The new initiative, eConcert, will be unveiled Thursday [June 10, 1999] at a press conference of RosettaNet members in Menlo Park, California. The XML-based eConcert will let RosettaNet's members -- including Compaq, Intel, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, American Express, Solectron, and Toshiba -- collaborate by giving them common definitions of 'price,' 'shipping,' 'processor speed,' 'modem,' etc., according to a source close to the group. The members are making a commitment to use eConcert by next February of next year, the source said. RosettaNet will also be announcing a system to create communities of buyers and sellers, such as chip makers and component assemblers on the Internet. . ." See also "RosettaNet." See: 'eConcert Announcement'. RosettaNet Press Event. The RosettaNet Press Event of Thursday, June 10, 1999 [Stanford Park Hotel, Menlo Park, California] is to cover the 'Launch of eConcert'. eConcert is the implementation phase of the RosettaNet initiative, designed to leverage the Internet's potential as a business-to-business commerce tool.

[June 09, 1999] "Home Depot Adds Imaging, Plans to Go 90%+ Paperless." By Dominque Deckmyn. In Computerworld Volume 33, Number 23 (June 07, 1999), page 11. "Despite today's Extensible Markup Language (XML) hype, the dream of paperless, business-to-business transactions is still elusive. But The Home Depot Inc. has just started to deploy an imaging system that will help it reach a 90% to 95% paperless state for internal operations by early next year. . . Home Depot said it will eventually add XML forms to the mix. 'Ideally, we want to handle XML forms in the same workflow as scanned documents and EDI data,' Klein said. XML may be easier to implement than EDI at some small suppliers, he said, though EDI is likely to remain the preferred solution at Home Depot."

[June 09, 1999] "Microsoft Backs XML As Standard Language." By David Orenstein. In Computerworld Volume 33, Number 23 (June 07, 1999), page 78. "Although most corporate developers are still just pondering the power of Extensible Markup Language (XML), some Microsoft Corp. customers said the vendor is providing the tools and direction they need to spur XML's use for a variety of tasks. Microsoft is building support for XML into its development tools for the sweeping role it envisions for the language. XML allows developers to describe data within a Web page or text message with tags similar to those found in the Internet programming language HTML. A key difference, however, is that XML lets users define their own tags to describe their data. With some XML standards unfinished, no vendor can provide complete XML support, [Zona's] Marshall said, but Microsoft will provide a comprehensive set of XML tools, 'just in the same way that Visual Studio is a pretty good set of tools'."

[June 09, 1999] "XML: The online-catalog solution." By Gerald Lazar. In [IDG] Civic.com (June 08, 1999). "A new World Wide Web tool has emerged that promises to revolutionize the way state and local agencies do electronic commerce while protecting investments in such technologies as electronic data interchange (EDI) and Open Buying on the Internet (OBI). 'XML is probably the culmination of 20 to 30 years of computer theory,' said Rita Knox, vice president and research director at Gartner Group. 'Within the next year, XML will be everywhere. It will be stabilized, and everyone will be able to use it'. Proponents say XML is perfect for e-commerce. Rather than maintaining large (and frequently outdated) catalogs on a server, an agency can send automated inquires to suppliers' Web sites, grab appropriately tagged information and return with whatever is needed to run a comparison. . . XML also is being lauded as a way to rescue investment in EDI. Because data inside an EDI system can be tagged with XML, the information can be used with other XML-based systems. But while that capability is significant in the commercial sector and, to a lesser degree, at the federal level, it may not be as much of a concern to most states."

[June 09, 1999] "Sun Embraces WBEM Standard for Solaris." By Emily Fitzloff. In InfoWorld (June 8, 1999). "Sun Microsystems on Tuesday announced Solaris WBEM (Web-Based Enterprise Management) Services, in a move that will make the Solaris operating system significantly more manageable. According to Tom Goguen, product line manager for Solaris software at Sun, the company is the first Unix provider to announce support for the Distributed Management Task Force's (DMTF's) WBEM standard. Microsoft supports WBEM in Windows, but both IBM and Hewlett-Packard support the specification only in their enterprise management software, not in their operating systems. 'XML over HTTP will enable developers to write management applications that could manage both Unix and NT,' Goguen said." See the press release: "Sun to Implement Web-Based Enterprise Management Standards in Solaris Operating Environment. Industry Leaders Applaud Sun's Embrace of Emerging WBEM Standards."

[June 09, 1999] "Addressing the Enterprise: Why the Web needs Groves." By Paul Prescod. "July, 1999." Draft technical paper. "This paper is a high level introduction to the grove paradigm. Just as SGML was a hidden jewel buried in among the ISO standards for screwdriver heads, groves are another well-kept secret. The time has come to make "groves for the Web". This document should be relevant to the people that would do the specifying and coding to make groves available on the Web, but also to technically-oriented managers that are not interested in the fine details. [Document plan:] (1) This document is intended to explain the importance of the grove paradigm to the [enerprise] (2) It is intended to clarify in people's minds what the result of parsing an SGML or XML document should look like. Some variation on the grove model could be imagined, but the basics of the model seem fundamental and unavoidable to me: for instance, W3C's DOM reflects the same basic concepts. (3) Groves were invented to solve the problems that had become revealed at a particular point in the development of the SGML family of standards. XML has reached the same point so the time is right to popularize the grove idea." See also: "Groves, Grove Plans, and Property Sets in SGML/DSSSL/HyTime." [local archive copy]

[June 08, 1999] "Web Architecture: Describing and Exchanging Data." By Tim Berners-Lee, Dan Connolly, and Ralph R. Swick. W3C Note 7-June-1999. June 07, 1999. The W3C has released a programmatic essay as a NOTE under the title Web Architecture: Describing and Exchanging Data, authored by Tim Berners-Lee (Director of the W3C), Dan Connolly (Leader of Architecture Domain), and Ralph R. Swick (W3C Metadata Activity Leader). In the abstract, the authors draw a deep breath that should prepare readers for the scope of the discussion: "The World Wide Web is a universal information space. As a medium for human exchange, it is becoming mature, but we are just beginning to build a space where automated agents can contribute -- just beginning to build the Semantic Web. . ." The document "explores a common model" whereby Schema design [RDFSchema] and XML Schema design [XMLSchema], which began as independent design efforts, may "fit together as interlocking pieces of the semantic web technology." The authors "review some of the requirements for the Semantic Web. Secondly, they review the data models of many systems whose data is under strong pressure to be accessible directly in semantic form. For each, they try to delineate the mapping where it is evident, but outline the areas where specification work is required." The essay seeks to demonstrate "the importance of a common architecture for tree-structured documents and directed labeled graphs, [and to] shed new light on some of the design decisions in the XML syntax used by RDF; it discusses the way contemporary data models (relational, object, knowledge representation) relate to a unified Semantic Web Architecture." [local archive copy]

[June 08, 1999] "Commerce Framework Nears Reality." By Whit Andrews. In Internet World Volume 5, Issue 21 (June 07, 1999), pages 15, 18. "An XML specification intended to connect a variety of commerce standards into a single framework is scheduled for release within CommerceNet by the end of the month. . . Much of the original eCo charter has been taken up by others, leaving eCo, now a CommerceNet project, with the task of linking disparate programs that have overlapping aims. An alphabet soup of programs, including Open Buying on the Internet (OBI), BizTalk, and Internet Content Exchange (ICE), are intended to be included in this new network. Many of the programs are still several stages from completion, but work on eCo is intended to bring an initial public release by fall. 'Time and time again, when we turn to one of those efforts or another, they seem to be stuck in something,' said Murray Maloney, current chair of the eCo project. He noted his sympathy for the hurdles the standards face in addressing complex issues in a savagely competitive marketplace. 'What I did was say, 'We can't wait for all these people-we need to put a stake in the ground and go with it.' ECo is now intended to provide a language through which other standards can communicate their essential information to one another. Using eCo as a cross-marketplace Esperanto, for example, would allow an OBI-compliant invoice to convey a shipping address to an EDI-based legacy system. The idea is not to execute an information transfer by matching data field-for-field, but by telling a software partner what will follow and then delivering it." See "eCo Framework Project and Working Group."

[June 08, 1999] "Solaris To Support WBEM Spec." By Jeffrey Schwartz. In InternetWeek (June 08, 1999). "The Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard today will get a boost from Sun Microsystems. A new release of Sun's Solaris Easy Access Server, slated to ship this summer, will support the Distributed Management Task Force's WBEM specification, a standard for managing systems from applications that support the spec. By adding WBEM support to Solaris, administrators can manage Solaris systems with any WBEM-compliant application or from a Web browser. Sun said it's shipping release of WBEM Solaris Services will also support the XML/HTTP specification, which the DMTF is expected to finalize as early as next week at meeting scheduled to take place in San Jose, Calif. Among other things, XML/HTTP will provide interoperability of management applications by gathering data from both Windows- and Unix-based systems. Without XML, WBEM-enabled applications would have to connect to NT and Solaris servers separately and couldn't interchange data. But by supporting XML, 'I can write a standard management application and point it to an NT server or a Solaris server and manage both in the same way,' Sun's Goguen said. Also by using XML, applications don't have to support competing object languages, notably Microsoft's COM and Sun's Java-based RMI. Rather, service providers take data and store it in the WBEM Common Information Format (CIM) Object Manager. CIM is a DMTF standard that allows the interchange of management data among different systems and platforms." Note: 'Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) is an initiative based on a set of management and Internet standard technologies developed to unify the management of enterprise computing environments. WBEM provides the ability for the industry to deliver a well-integrated set of standard-based management tools leveraging the emerging technologies such as CIM and XML.' For further information, see: "DMTF Common Information Model (CIM)." See also "Sun Adopts WBEM, and Provides the Active Ingredient with Java Technology" and the recent press release, Sun to Implement Web-Based Enterprise Management Standards in Solaris Operating Environment. Industry Leaders Applaud Sun's Embrace of Emerging WBEM Standards."

[June 08, 1999] "IBM To Fold XML Into DB2." By James Gaskin. In Inter@ctive Week [Online] (June 07, 1999). "IBM is making a big push to incorporate eXtensible Markup Language technology into its core database. At the recent XML One conference, IBM repeated its pledge to fold eXtensible Markup Language into the DB2 version 6.1 database. 'We certainly see XML as mainstream technology and a core technology for application frameworks,' said Marie Wieck, director of XML technology at IBM. 'The XML Extender is in beta test now,' Wieck said, referring to the DB2 tool to import and export XML files. 'We have over 500 developers working on XML inside IBM.' Wieck sees IBM playing a central and critical role in XML development. 'We're providing an XML search engine so companies can find DTD [Document Type Definitions] resources already out there. We also provide actual services such as XML education and schema development, and are involved in a number of groups creating the standards.' DTDs are files that define the codes used to display a document. . ."

[June 08, 1999] "A Hitchhiker's Guide To XML." By James E. Gaskin. In Inter@ctive Week [Online] (June 07, 1999), pages 27-28. "Recent announcements that high-tech bigs AT&T, IBM and Microsoft were pushing the eXtensible Markup Language brought renewed attention to the HyperText Markup Language follow-on. The eXtensible Markup Language, which made its debut in 1996, quickly evolved from an improved Web design option into a structured